Macon County Homicide Victim Identified

May 13, 2010

DECATUR, GA – The body found last Friday along a rural Macon County road has been identified as 21-year-old Michael Edwin Haegele of Mauk, Georgia, in Marion County.

A friend of Haegele’s had contacted the GBI yesterday afternoon after seeing media reports indicating the body found in Macon County had had surgical implants in his right thigh. The friend told the GBI that he had not heard from Haegele since May 1, and that he knew that Haegele had had implants in his leg. From that information, GBI agents and crime lab scientists worked into the early morning hours in an effort to confirm the identify. The GBI crime lab was able to identify Haegele from latent prints lifted by GBI agents from his room at the mobile home where he had lived.

The friend told agents that Haegele had no immediate family members and an extensive search by GBI Intelligence analysts failed to locate any living family.

Haegele had lived in Mauk for a little over a year. He had lived at one time in the St. Louis, Missouri area where he graduated from high school.

Haegele’s body was found last Friday at 5:50 p.m. alongside Butler’s Mill Road in rural Macon County near the Macon-Taylor County line. The body was spotted by a passing school bus driver and students.

The investigation into his death, which has been ruled a homicide, is continuing by the Macon County Sheriff’s Office and the GBI Regional Office in Americus. Anyone with information on Haegele is asked to call the GBI tip line at 1-800-597-TIPS.